PAT CAPUTO: Lockout is over, but why should we ever trust NHL again? WITH VIDEO

In this image from video, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, left, talks to the media as Donald Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players' Association, stands next to him, in New York, early Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. A tentative deal to end the 113-day NHL lockout was reached early Sunday morning following a marathon 16-hour negotiating session. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Johnston)

"Trust" is a word that should be barred from National Hockey League venues.

In 1994-95, the NHL shortened a season to 48 games after a long labor stoppage because it wanted cost certainty, and got it to a degree in the form of a rookie salary cap.

Trust us, the issue is corrected, we heard.

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Then in 2004-05, the entire season was canceled as the NHL fought to get a hard salary cap in place for more cost certainty. Trust us, with a full salary cap in place, we heard, this was not going to happen again.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, and after a prolonged labor stoppage in the NHL that put another season on the brink of being wiped out, the league and its players agreed to a collective bargaining pact.

The league is back. A 48-to-50 game schedule is coming after a rushed training camp of approximately a week. There will only be games played within each conference. The playoffs likely won't start until May. The postseason could come close to Baseball's All-Star Game.

It defines dilution of the product.

This time, it's not clear what each side was fighting for, but the damage undoubtedly will be extensive.

Why should anybody trust this league ever again? All the NHL does is break trust.

Like many of you reading this, I'm obsessed with the four major team sports in this country. Honestly, I can't get enough of any of them. But when push comes to shove and somebody insists I name a favorite sport, I say hockey.

Hockey carries the moniker as the world's fastest sport. It is deserved. That speed is combined with a rugged aspect that involves full contact. Fighting is allowed at its highest level. Beyond speed and contact, hockey is the most skilled of all the major team sports. It not only involves incredible hand-eye coordination at high rates of speed under extreme physical pressure and danger, but there is a necessity to learn how to ice skate.

There is no sports event more compelling than a great hockey game. Yet, the sport is run at its highest level, the NHL, extremely poorly. And it is not just Gary Bettman, the NHL's deservedly maligned long-time commissioner, at fault. The NHL has been getting it wrong forever.

The league has taken teams out of markets that supported franchises, and moved them to markets that don't (you know it's just a matter of time until they try Atlanta again). When the league has expanded, beginning in 1967-68 when it doubled in size from six to 12 teams, it has inevitably proven to be the immediate detriment of the sport, not its common benefit.

All sports have problems with the way they are officiated, but none to the degree of the NHL. It just changes on bizarre whims. Because of hockey's physicality, players often cross the line. However, the manner in which punishment for infractions is doled out is anything but even-handed and consistent. It took forever, but, finally, a major U.S. television network is legitimately interested in the NHL for reasons other than pity -- NBC -- to the point it is building a new sports network around the league. The lockout took away that momentum.

And please, don't fall into the trap of the players being considered innocent dupes. They are the ones who hired Donald Fehr, whose history of labor war while heading the MLB Players Association, in addition to being an enabler of the so-called steroids era in that game, was deplorable.

The NHL has been particularly inconsiderate of this town. Located in a border city to Canada, and one of the Original Six franchises, the Red Wings play in a conference with only one team in their time zone. For years, Red Wing fans have being forced to endure playoff games starting after 10 p.m. on weeknights and seldom seeing the teams they really care about their team facing, such as Toronto and Montreal, visiting Joe Louis Arena. This is the NHL's long-standing memo to Red Wings' fans: "You will get Columbus and Nashville every other night -- and you will like it. Oh, and by the way, don't you dare throw that octopus on the ice ..."

Look how long it took for this area to host the Winter Classic? And then, it is postponed a year, and for what reason?

It's abuse, that's what it is.

I know what you're thinking. "Caputo, you will watch every minute of every Red Wings game." That, thanks the magic of the DVR, is close to being true.

"The first thing you make sure you do every Saturday night is to see what crazy thing Don Cherry says on Hockey Night in Canada."

True, again. If I can't actually watch Don Cherry, I record his segment. Oh, and "Satellite Hot Stove" and (I'm almost embarrassed to admit this) "Hockey Night in Canada After Hours."

I'm hooked. I admit it. I always will be. I justify it in my mind by telling myself that I'm not going to let Gary Bettman and the American version of the KHL (Knucklehead Hockey League) ruin my fun.